Real Global Temperature Trend, p21 – Science is ruthless. We have ‘about zero’ years of emissions to stay below 1.5 degrees

That is if you correct for one important piece of scientific criticism to the below graph. But even if you prefer to ignore what may seem the nitty gritty of climatology and accept a maximum global carbon budget of 8.9 … Continue reading

Real Global Temperature Trend, p11 – Under agreed 1.5 degrees target world has 8 years of emissions for rest of century

And that understanding has just ended the Age of Coal. Thank you coal – it’s been great fun. We’ll have to leave the rest of you where you’ve been for the previous millions of years. In our quest to uncover … Continue reading

#BreakFree2016 – If 6 countries would stop exporting coal, that would be very helpful

Just 6 countries: The United States, Colombia, South Africa, Russia, Indonesia and Australia. If somehow we could sprinkle (perhaps shake) a little common sense, the rest of the world would be deprived of imports of the most polluting and CO2-intensive fossil fuel … Continue reading

Mistaken headlines due to IEA report. In fact global CO2 emissions reached dramatic new record in 2015. Good news is ‘Energy’, not ‘Climate’

But the problem is, no one is properly measuring. We again point to the Keeling curve – this time NOAA’s ‘global average’ atmospheric CO2 concentration over the last 5 years. Very easy to conclude world media are annoyingly wrong today, … Continue reading

IPCC graph of the day: bridging a gap of >600 ppm – immediate clamp down on fossil fuels required

Yesterday we took a look at what we have been doing over the past 40 years. Now we take a look at what we will be doing over the rest of the 21st century. It’s a real shocker to look … Continue reading

Zeolites can reduce carbon capture energy costs by 30 per cent

Zeolite structure

In this zeolite structure, the arrangement of oxygen atoms (red) and silicon atoms (tan) influences the regions in the pores (colored surface) where CO2 can be captured.

A detailed analysis of more than 4 million absorbent minerals has determined that new materials could help electricity producers slash as much as 30 percent of the “parasitic energy” costs associated with removing carbon dioxide from power plant emissions.

The research by scientists at Rice University, the University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) was published online this week in the journal Nature Materials (In silico screening of carbon-capture materials”).

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Safe way to store hydrogen to be developed for use in cars and it’s even cheaper than petrol

The European Technology Initiative, “Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking” (FCH JU), is providing approx 2.3 million euro of finance for the development of new hydrogen solid-state containers on the basis of boron hydrides.These compounds absorb much more hydrogen, the tanks remain compact.The Bor4Store project is being coordinated by the Institute of Material Research at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht.

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New carbon capture technique is highly energy efficient

metal-organic frameworks (MOF)

Metal-organic frameworks (MOF) (Credit: Texas A&M University)

Ask Texas A&M University chemist Hong-Cai “Joe” Zhou to describe his research in simple terms, and more often than not, he’ll draw on a favorite analogy from childhood: playing with LEGOs.

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Natural and human-made CO2 differentiation possible thanks to new monitoring technique

A large diversity of gasses in the atmosphere influence air quality, climate change and the recovery of the ozone layer. Measuring the concentrations of these gases in the atmosphere is quite straightforward. But pinpointing wether the gasses are a natural … Continue reading